Attention indies both local and global: submissions have been opened for the 2012 Fantastic Arcade — taking place here in Austin, TX from September 20th-27th — with an May 31st deadline already rapidly approaching.

This’ll be the third Fantastic Arcade, which has drawn indies from all across the globe to Austin — names like Vlambeer, Polytron, Derek Yu, Cactus, Messhof, Jon Blow, Molleindustria and Superbrothers — for a week of talks, demonstrations and debuts of new and otherwise unseen games and prototypes, and general carousing.

Here’s how the festival — operated by our friends, partners and generally favorite theater organization ever, Alamo Drafthouse — describes itself:

Fantastic Arcade fuses the world of independent film and independent gaming. We bring together artists and professionals who are telling stories and creating experiences in film, games and online entertainment simultaneously. At Fantastic Arcade, we showcase a curated selection of brand new independent games as well as a larger sampling of important groundbreaking independent games from the last couple of years.

Attendees are invited to play the games as well as interact with the game developers via panels and nightly parties and happy hours. We also feature both panels with independent filmmakers side by side with game developers and intimate demo sessions by independent game developers. Lastly, we feel that video games rightfully belong side by side with shorts and feature films at Fantastic Fest. The artistic merit of these games will be honored with both audience awards and a juried competition.

Selected games will proceed to the second round of submissions and will be asked to provide a playable version of the game for Fantastic Arcade festival programmers. Official selections for the Arcade will be made based on each game’s art, story, characters, gameplay and, most importantly, connection with the character of Fantastic Fest.

Submit your game to be a part of this year’s festivities by clicking here!

[photo by Indie Game: The Movie creators Blinkworks!]

After some goofy off-months, we’re now officially back up to date, and so, presented below is the latest in our regular series of indie games both local and global worth paying attention to, fully annotated & linked up for your pleasure.

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Various forces have conspired to keep us from doing a full on Fistful of Indies in many, many months, and then conspired to keep me from posting our last roundup for the past couple months. Nevertheless, presented below is the latest in our regular series — with the latest selection of indie games both local and global worth paying attention to.

Check back next week for something much more up to date, but — better late than never — this one’s a roundup of the games that came out between December 2011 & February 2012:

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How do you navigate a videogame world when the game itself keeps re-writing the rules around you? Come find out this Sunday, April 1st, at 4PM at our special tenth edition of JUEGOS RANCHEROS at The Highball, as we give Austin its first chance to play ANTICHAMBER, Demruth’s upcoming mindbending game of psychological exploration, with creator Alexander Bruce in attendance.

[ RSVP FOR THIS EVENT AND INVITE YOUR FRIENDS ON FACEBOOK BY CLICKING HERE! ]

ANTICHAMBER comes to Austin fresh off its win at the 14th annual Independent Game Festival a few short weeks ago, where it took home the prize for Technical Excellence — the latest in a long string of recognition which also includes accolades from IndieCade, Penny Arcade and Japan’s Sense of Wonder Night.

There it also was named one of BitMob’s top three games of GDC 2012, who called it “an enlightened nightmare, a beautiful trap, a revelatory puzzle,” and added:

Alexander Bruce’s deliciously devious rabbit hole doesn’t set out to trick you so much as it wants you to stop tricking yourself. You don’t have to jump over everything…just walk instead. It can get frustrating if you stubbornly hold fast to everything video games ever taught you, but take a breath, step off the path, and do something that doesn’t feel quite right just to see if it works. That’s how you play Antichamber.

Come hear from and meet creator Bruce — visiting Austin from his native Melbourne — and take the opportunity to dive down this rabbit hole yourself!

Everything will be kicking off Sunday, April 1st, promptly at 4PM at The Highball, 1142 S Lamar Blvd, Austin, TX 78704! Come hang out, enjoy the Highball’s Happy Hour drink specials, and say hello to the people changing the way you think about games!

What does an Oxford bioethics teacher and a former member of Cut Copy (?!?) know about videogames? Come find out this Sunday, February 12th, at 4PM, at The Foddy Winter Olympics: our ninth edition of JUEGOS RANCHEROS at The Highball that will show you exactly why Bennett Foddy‘s become one of indie gaming’s most notable (and funniest!) cult-hit creators.

[ RSVP FOR THIS EVENT AND INVITE YOUR FRIENDS ON FACEBOOK BY CLICKING HERE! ]

A little background: it all started with QWOP, a free web game (later ported to the iPhone) that took the button-mashing simplicity of 8-bit classics like TRACK & FIELD to its totally illogical polar extreme, giving you direct control of each muscle of your athlete’s legs and asking you to learn how to walk all over again. A true viral hit, soon YouTube & Tumblr were full of people attempting to do just that, as well as some inspired cosplay and the best animated Cosby-sweater-photo of all time.

Then came GIRP, which turned rock-climbing into a game of Twister for your keyboard, WINNER VS LOSER, a competitive, slapstick return to TRACK & FIELD for drunks, and, most recently, POLERIDERS, a two-player polo game played out using hyper-realistic vaulting-pole physics.

So, what will our Winter Olympics consist of?

First, the Texas debut of MEGA GIRP, a remix of the rock-climbing hit by Doug Wilson, the creator of JUEGOS-favorite JOHANN SEBASTIAN JOUST. Played out on four dance-mats laid out like a giant full-body keyboard, MEGA GIRP turns those finger-Twister gymnastics into the real-life counterpart. Wear stretchy pants!

We’ll also be debuting: multiplayer QWOP! — a head-to-head version that sizes up just who the real muscle-manipulating champion really is. And we’ll obviously also have lots and lots of pole-riding and winning versus losing: give all of them a try via the links above & get your fingers (and whole body) limbered up to take the championship!

Everything will be kicking off Sunday, February 12th, promptly at 4PM at The Highball, 1142 S Lamar Blvd, Austin, TX 78704! Come hang out, enjoy the Highball’s Happy Hour drink specials, and say hello to the people changing the way you think about games!

Hey all — it turns out the first Sunday of February happens to be Super Bowl Sunday, so our next JUEGOS will be taking place the following SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 12th, at the usual 4:00PM time, at the usual Highball place!

We’ve got a pretty wicked one planned for February, so clear off your calendar now!